


Look At Me

by Flutiebear



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Dom!Jade, Dom/sub Undertones, Dominance, F/M, Is the best Jade, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 10:00:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17057693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/pseuds/Flutiebear
Summary: Hendrik doesn't know where to look. Jade has way too much fun teasing him about it.





	Look At Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Claranon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claranon/gifts).



> I am absolute trash for this ship, ok. TRASH.

Jade can’t take Hendrik anywhere, and it isn’t just because of his imposing glare and armor; or his compulsive chivalry and near-constant declamations about his duty; and it’s certainly not because of the lovestruck sighs he elicits from every taproom in Erdrea. Mostly, it’s because, when confronted with a dancing girl, Hendrik does not know where to look.

“Hendrik, for Yggdrasil’s sake,” she hisses in his ear, “you are the only man in this bar with his eyes on the ground.”

He shakes his head ever so slightly. “Please tell me when she is finished.”

“You’re impossible. Just look up already.”

He tilts his chin to the ceiling.

Jade glares at him, not that he can see it. “You know that's not what I meant.”

“Perhaps. But I prefer this vantage. Look at those antique rafters. Do you think they are Arborian?”

“ _Hendrik.”_

With a sigh, he brings his chin back to its normal position. However, he pointedly angles himself away from the dancing girl, instead turning his shoulders toward Jade.

“Princess,” he says, his enunciation alone a reminder of the distance between them, that to him she is a title first and not a name, “I beg of you, do not ask this of me.”

Jade’s belly flutters when Hendrik says the word _beg._ “And why not?”

“It would be inappropriate for me to engage in such—" he flounders for a word, " _indelicacies_ while in your company.”

“Oh Henny-Wenny." The top of her flagon hides her smile. “A look is not an engagement.”

He inhales sharply, every muscle in his neck and shoulders tensing at once.   

“Wh—no—I—er—that’s not what I meant,” he finishes eventually.

The furtive way his gaze casts about the bar, like a hare seeking the underbrush, stirs something deep inside Jade. It opens a door she thought she had long ago closed and locked and thrown away the key.

Now that the door is open, however, she finds that she wants to see where it leads.

“What if I were dressed the same as she?” The firelight in the hearth catches in her eyes and gives them a reddish glint. “Where would you cast your gaze then?”

His cheeks redden. “But you are a princess.”

“And once I was a dancing girl.” When his mouth drops open, she fights the urge to lean over and close it for him. “Don’t look so shocked, Henny. On our travels Rab and I had took all manner of employment to make ends meet. Maybe,” she smirks, baring the tips of her teeth, “you and your men even watched my show.”

“Certainly not,” he answers at once.

“That's fair,” she concedes. “It _is_ difficult to imagine you willingly in a taproom and awake past eight o’ clock.”

“Not at all. I socialize with my comrades-in-arms, when occasion calls for it. But, Princess,” his eyes briefly meet hers before once again darting away, “I am certain I would have remembered you.”

Jade gnaws on her lower lip. She has the sudden, brief urge to toss Hendrik to the floor, right here, in front of all these people; to tower over this massive, recalcitrant man and force him to look up at her and nowhere else. “You didn’t answer my question,” she says, her voice low and dangerous. “If I were a dancing girl, would you look at me?”

His fingers clench around the flagon. “I would be honor-bound to divert my gaze.”

Trust Hendrik to purposely misunderstand the meaning of a hypothetical. “And,” she leans closer to him, so close she can smell the soap in his hair and the sword oil on his clothes, “what if I commanded you to look at me?”

At the moment, he is doing precisely the opposite, his attention captivated by an invisible speck on the table. “Then I would do so.”

“What if,” the curve of Jade’s smile is small, vicious, “I commanded you to watch me dance?”

He visibly swallows, but does not answer.

“Sir Knight?”

“Then,” his voice is rough, “Then I must obey what my lady commands.”

“Must you now,” says Jade, and it is not a question, but a lick of the lips, a shiver down the spine. “I wonder if I could give you an order that you would not obey.”

Finally Hendrik meets her eyes. He is grim-faced, stoic. Full of resolve. It’s the same expression he wears whenever he is facing down a dragon or particularly fearsome demon. Being the object of that gaze unfurls something in Jade’s belly, between her legs.

“I would,” he does not look away, “obey any order my lady commands.”

Lifting her chin, Jade stares at him down her nose. A thousand impertinent orders race through her mind, like _kiss me_ , or _take me upstairs_ , or _get on your knees_ , but the best one by far is, “Then dance with me.”

His eyes boggle, his iron resolve broken. “W-what?”

Jade stands.

“Dance with me, Hendrik.” She holds out her hand. “That is an order.”


End file.
